Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Have you ever had a dream so wrought with intense emotion that you awoke to feeling that emotion as much as you did when you were asleep? I had such a dream last night. The end of the dream was intense with terror and panic. . . so much so that I woke up suddenly, and it took a good hour before those feelings subsided. But in that hour, I wondered why I did not have such intense feelings toward the enemy of sin. I do hate my sin. I do loathe its awful renderings in my life. But the mere thought of committing sin does not induce within me the feelings of terror that were associated with my dream.

Could it be that I do not see sin as dangerous as it really is? As a Christian, I see sin as something detestable, but do I really feel and know that to my core? Perhaps sin is still to much a part of who I am to be truly alien to me and cause me to revile it so. But does sin have this effect on any man? It has had that effect on at least one man. Before Jesus' arrest and crucifixion, he met with much agony at Gethsemane. In Matthew 26, it says he was sorrowful and deeply distressed and he told his disciples that his "soul was exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death." In Luke 22 it says his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground. And he cried out to the father, "if it is your will, take this cup away from me." The torment was great. The terror was real. But why was Christ, the one who had remained steadfast and bold in the face of opposition, now seemingly to recoil in fear? It was the cup. The cup of God's wrath and righteous judgement. It was a judgement against sin.

Unlike any other man, Christ had not known sin. He did know know what it meant to have sin coursing through the veins from birth. He did not know what separation from the Father meant because of sin. He was not ruled by sin or the flesh but ruled by the will of God. Yet, in a little while, he would become sin and be an enemy of God. It was something he had never known, and the terror struck him with the fierceness of all of hell. Yet he remained faithful.

Oh, may I not become friends with sin. May I not make treaties and become complacent and accustomed to its presence. May even the thought of sin. . . mutiny against a Holy God. . . strike terror within my heart. May it become as loathsome as a festering boil and as terrifying as the flames of hell.